Abstract : Polysemic and translatological approach of the Koran. The Surah XXII (Al-Ḥajj [the pilgrimage]) as a model

According to Islamic tradition, one of the core characteristics of the Quran is that it is a polysemic text par excellence (ḥammāl dhū wujūh, bearer of several faces). To say that the Quranic text is polysemic implies that its various exegeses are as many possible readings of it, which implies in turn that its translations are also as many readings that complete each other. The accumulation of translations is thus another expression of the polysemy of the original text, even if the diversity of these translations does not match that of the exegeses.

The thesis deals with the analysis of the Surah of Al-Ḥajj [pilgrimage] (n° 22) and it is based on two research axes :

I. a study of the polysemy of the original text (Surah of Al-Ḥajj) : 1. Concise History of the Exegesis of the Koran in Relation to Polysemy ;2. Pronominal polysemy : at the level of pronouns, particles, deictics (clutches), clitics ;3. Lexical polysemy : at the word level ;4. Polysemy of utterances : at the level of sentences : syntax, punctuation, anastrophe, omission, etc.

II. A study of the polysemy of the final text (18 French translations) to show how translation reduces and/or modifies polysemy. This part is divided into six chapters : 1) Short presentation of the French translations of the Quran in the light of polysemy ; 2) The distorting tendencies in the French translations of the surah of al-Ḥajj ; 3) Pronominal polysemy ; 4) Lexical polysemy ; 5) polysemy of utterances ; 6) Convergences and divergences in translations.

The corpus of translations (18 translations) covers all the periods of the history of the translation of the Koran from 1647 until 2010 in order to see the evolution of the translation of the Koranic text.

As a closed space that evolves independently from exegesis to more literality, the translations meet and complement each other, reflecting in their diversity with slight modification a large part of the polysemy united and concentrated in the original text but sporadic, sparse and Dispersed in the translations.